Free Republic

According to the text of the bill, the legislation seeks “To prohibit the use of the digital currency payment system operated by the government of the People’s Republic of China, and for other purposes.” Specifically, the legislation prohibits “app platforms in the United States from hosting apps that enable transactions using the Chinese Communist Party’s digital yuan (e-CNY),” the announcement details. “The Chinese Communist Party’s digital yuan allows direct control and access to the financial lives of individuals. We cannot allow this authoritarian regime to use their state-controlled digital currency as an instrument to infiltrate our economy and the private...

Ever since China launched its digital yuan in 2019, western commentary has reacted to the initiative with waves of nonsense. Many of these articles suggest that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) has stolen a march on the West. Many claim that China’s digital effort will secure the yuan global status and enable it to supplant the dollar as the world’s premier currency for international reserves and transactions.The venerable Economist magazine forecast that soon everyone everywhere will be using the digital yuan. The most recent wave of such commentary emerged after the Federal Reserve (Fed) and other central banks announced...

Historians still quibble about what event marked the end of the Roman Empire. Some future historians might choose Jan. 16, 2021 as the fatal moment for the American Empire. That’s when the People’s Bank of China and SWIFT, the global system for international monetary transfers, set up a joint venture to promote the use of China’s digital currency in cross-border payments. It’s early days, but the joint venture could denote the end of the dollar’s role as the dominant medium of international exchange, and, more importantly, the end of more than $20 trillion of cheap loans to the United States...